


Bending

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 R2, R3, Final - CIRCLECEST [22]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, F/M, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-06
Updated: 2011-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-20 05:03:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You make a lovely woman, Briar.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com
> 
> Fifth (I think? After Sandry/Briar) in my Circlecest megaship megaseries. Also, I couldn't help it.

            “Hey, Daj.” Briar’s voice.

            Daja looked up and didn’t know whether to laugh at the imbroglio before her or run from it. Briar was wearing a dress, and stockings, and heels from what she could see. She thought she spotted the hint of makeup to his features as well. A metal pin in his hair? And yet his dashing smile was not so changed.

            “Briar, what are you doing?”

            “I’m having a little fun. You can’t say you’re not tempted once in a while.” He shimmied over to her and leaned against the kitchen table. His motions were astonishingly feminine.

            “You’re incredibly good at that, you know,” Daja told him, at last smiling. “Should you be pleased with that or not?”

            “Given how much time I spent watching you, Tris and Sandry, I’ll say I’m pleased.” He lifted his hand and circled his wrist, inspecting his nails before his face. “You can’t say I don’t pull it off.”

            “No, I find I can’t. You make a lovely woman, Briar.”

            “I was hoping you would say that.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because you love lovely women.”

Daja stopped pulling brass from her hand and stared up at Briar. “Why are you hoping I find you a lovely woman, Briar?”

            “Because you love lovely women.” He pulled out another chair from the Cheeseman House kitchen table and sat in it, one stocking-clad leg crossing over the other at the knee as Daja had seen countless women perform. She smiled fondly at the gesture. Whatever Briar was after, he was after it full force.

            “I can’t protest that.” Daja formed a ring out of the metal she had pulled from her hand and blew on it. She grasped Briar’s hand and slipped the ring over his thumb. “Why do you want me to love you as a lovely woman?”

            “You went with Tris,” Briar stated—simply a fact—with a soft voice. “And I think you’ll seek out Sandry soon enough. I just didn’t want us to be all senescent and sagging when you finally saw I was available, too, even if my parts are wrong.”

            “Briar, your parts aren’t _wrong]_ —you know that!” She leaned to squeeze his bottom; he squealed and jerked away, again in an uncannily feminine manner. “I don’t lie with women because they’re _right_ , just because that’s what my nature urges me to do.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Daj’, you’re plain-out smarter’n me, you know that?”

Briar sat at the kitchen table of the house at 6 Cheeseman Street—Daja’s house—fingering the ring Daja had given him. He laughed down at the clothing he wore from Sandry’s wardrobe—women’s clothing.

            “You know about me, don’t you?” He asked at last. “You were the first to guess that all my guests weren’t female.”

            “Yes,” Daja admitted, smiling faintly. “I’m still not sure the others know. Rosethorn does, now; I swore she _danced_ when she heard, and went off to ‘rub it in’ to Lark.”

            Briar flushed some; it worked with his feminine attire. “She always thought I went for men too. And I do. Not as much as women, but the men I tend to find are…exquisite, in their own fashion.”

            Daja smiled. “I suppose I can understand that.”

            “What does your nature say about me, Daj’?” he inquires, clearly working to keep his voice all curiosity and no hope. “I’m not Sandry or Tris, but—”

            “One Sandry and one Tris are quite enough, thank you,” Daja responded through a smile, before Briar could work himself into a tizzy. He leaned back, evidently more comfortable for the interruption. She returned to pulling the excess brass from her hand as she thought. “My nature tells me you are the most excellent man this world has ever bred, and that you are a part of my heart—something Traders and once-Traders never forget. I wouldn’t normally think of you in…in _that_ way, but it isn’t impossible. It would be the deepest form of gratitude I could offer.”

            “Gratitude?” Briar repeated, surprised by the answer.

            Daja nodded. “I’ve watched you a long time, Briar, and I know your languages. You speak in flowers and actions. You say you tumble with women—and men—because you are lonely, afraid of the night, but I know it is also out of gratitude: for who they are as people, and for connecting with you.”

            “Daj’, you’re plain-out smarter’n me, you know that?”

            “No, I don’t, because it isn’t true.” But she flashed him a grin, all big white pearly teeth. “Pretend as you might.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We could tumble deeply into gratitude and spend all night appreciating.”

Briar couldn’t stop thinking about Daja’s words. She had always been quieter than the two other Circle females, but when she spoke it tended to hold real meaning—and sense.

            “You think sex is about gratitude for me?” he repeated at last, elbows on the table and chin perched on the back of his hands.

            Daja recognised lash-paint and lid-kohl, which made her smile. Briar was dashing, no matter what gender he was constructing. “I think it is. I won’t speak on Tris or Sandry—that’s for them—but I know that much of sex is gratitude for me, too. I tend to be grateful for women. But Briar, I’m grateful for you too. More than words can express. I think you can understand that.”

            “I can.” He paused, circling the ring—a gift from Daja—around his thumb and marvelling at the feel of living metal, one of the most unique sensations in the world. He didn’t notice Daja’s eyes darkening. “But where does that leave us?”

            “We could tumble deeply into gratitude and spend all night appreciating.” Daja lifted herself up in her chair, dropping her legs from her previously cross-legged position. One foot fell to Briar’s stocking-clad leg and stroked.

            “ _That’s_ a language I understand,” Briar affirmed. He laughed, loud and free, and stood, grabbing Daja’s metallic hand to lift her with him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Three rules.”

Daja lifted the cross-dressed Briar up onto one of her counters and held him there, firm and steady, with her hips.

            “Three rules.” She held up one finger. “One, my hands and face don’t go below the belt. Two, I don’t see your parts up close. Three, you keep the stockings on.”

            Briar licked his lips and smiled; Daja dove at the smile with her mouth, no pretence or hesitance. She took him by surprise and he moaned, hands slipping behind her neck and fingers weaving into her braids. Daja felt what she thought could only be vines snaking over the sensitive skin of her scalp; she bit Briar’s lip and soothed his yelp away.

            Briar slipped down from the counter and picked Daja up. She yelped, now, and swatted at his skirts-covered bottom but he paid it no mind, carrying her up the stairs to her bedroom. He threw her down onto the bed and followed immediately after.

            “I apologise if that was a new experience for you,” Briar expressed, though his eyes didn’t read as true as his words.

            Daja prodded at his nose. “It wasn’t.”

            He nibbled her neck, his words muffled by her hot—so hot!—neck. “Then I’m sorry for being the hairiest ‘woman’ you’ve been with.”

            She laughed and her features melted into unrefined humour. She tugged him up the bed. “You aren’t. I love all sorts and it takes all kinds. But _I_ know I’m the hottest woman you’ve ever been with.” Her flashing white teeth cooled her words, insuring that they were not a slight against Sandry or Tris.

            “I think having a volcano under your skin may be classified as cheating,” Briar reflected as he tugged Daja’s tight work shirt over her head and out from under her. “But then, I doubt you’ve ever had anyone so woody…”

            When Daja cried out with laughter, head bent back and chest arched up, he attacked the molten-metal skin there with his mouth and hands. For all that it was a new situation for Daja, many sensations were similar and carried over.

            And beyond that, as Briar dipped below her belt, she was _grateful_. She wasn’t surprised, either, that she was not finished with him by the time Tris returned home with Sandry in tow. It seemed they had taken up with similar activities.

            Daja and Briar could not be outmatched, however, for their training had brought them stamina that could not be trifled with.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You may be onto something, Briar.”

Briar awoke in Daja’s room, though it took him a few seconds to recognise his location. He hadn’t spent much time in her bedroom. He also realised there was an albatross staring at him—a metal one, but unconventional all the same.

            “Albatross?” He questioned aloud when he felt Daja stirring.

            “It’s for Tris. She likes them.”

            “Just like her to like a strange bird.”

            Daja poked him in the side. “What are you implying?”

            He laughed. “Well she likes me, and she likes you, and she likes Sandry…I guess we must all be a bit strange.”

            “A bit, or more than a bit,” Daja agreed through a hazy morning smile. “We have a lot to be grateful for, from Tris. All of us.”

            “Should we go show her how grateful we are, as Sandry has been doing?” Briar offered, eyes sparked in the early sunlight. Daja laughed and tousled his hair; he hurried to fix it.

            “Eventually. But I have one person left that deserves my gratitude, before we all thank Tris at once.”

            Briar drew shapes over the skin of Daja’s tight stomach. “You’re finally going to approach Sandry, then?”

            “Finally?”

            He stared at her as if she was dense as dessert. “ _That’s_ one we’ve all been expecting. _Saatis?_ It was a shock that Tris got to you first. Then, I think Sandry needed something to open her eyes. She must be waiting for you—which means a lot, since she generally isn’t one to _wait_.”

            Daja smiled, slow and tender. “I’ll have to make it worth waiting for.”

            “Seduce her with some romance, I say: the old-fashioned way.”

            “You may be onto something, Briar.”

            He rolled atop Daja, his grin boyish and ageless at once. “Yes, I think I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! C: I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
